


Thanks For The Surgery

by SaxSpieler



Series: Verǫld Vǫrðr [3]
Category: Runescape
Genre: Alcohol, Gen, Implied Drug Use, Mild Profanity, Surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 18:36:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10950381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaxSpieler/pseuds/SaxSpieler
Summary: Adrius has an unfortunate run-in with a cactus. Ali the Wise assists.





	Thanks For The Surgery

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of a random scenario: Adrius has an accident and Ali has to perform emergency surgery in his living room, all while absolutely smashed and trying not to give away anything alluding to his true identity or past. Lots of snark incoming because snarky/salty/dry humor Wahi is good food for my soul.
> 
> I’ll put warnings here for blood (this is a surgical procedure and I do go into a decent amount of detail because Certified Rodent Surgeon), alcohol, implied drug use, and mild profanity.
> 
> Major thanks to Shady for prompt suggestion and editing/proofreading help!

“Saradomin’s beard, Finley, it still hurts!”

“Then stop moving, ye great wank-stain! That’ll just make it worse!”

“Gods…I’m going to die, aren’t I?”

“No ye aren’t - just hold on. We’re almost to Ali’s place, aye?”

Adrius whimpered in pain, burying his face in the crook of Finley’s neck and wrapping his arms tighter around her. She, in turn, hummed reassuringly, adjusting her grip on his torso and legs as she carried him bridal-style through Nardah.

Finley and Adrius had become quite used to mishaps on their journeys, especially now since coming into the semi-employment of Ali the Wise (though the Nardahnian scholar preferred to call it ‘a collaboration to unwind the mysteries of the desert’). However, this particular mishap came not from a mummy, a frozen monster, or a vindictive woman in red sequestered with her playthings in an underground temple.

“On yer left, sir!” she piped up, stepping around that friendly yet nosy bloke - whatever his name was - who always seemed to linger outside of Ali’s house.

“Good evening to you two!” he replied, bowing slightly.

“No, it’s not,” Adrius grumbled. Finley shushed him before turning to the man - no doubt he would know exactly where Ali was at this hour, seeing as his absences from his corner of Nardah were as frequent as Adrius’ sunburns as of late.

“Aye! Ye seen Ali about? Is he home?”

The man nodded, gesturing to Ali’s house.

“He’s home, of course. Hasn’t left his house in about three hours, based on what I’ve seen.”

_Aye, and you bloody well see everything that goes on around here,_ she thought to herself, still slightly perturbed by the man’s…extensive knowledge of Ali’s whereabouts, before giving a quick ‘thank you’ and jogging the rest of the way to the house.

“Ali!” Finley called, kicking her boot against the door in lieu of a knock. “Ali, ye there?”

After a moment, the door creaked open slightly to reveal…

_Oh, bollocks…_

Ali, with reddened, droopy eyes, in nothing but an undershirt and trousers, chest hair clearly visible.

Ali, with the sweet stench of burnt herbs and tobacco wafting off of him.

Ali, visibly inebriated.

“What?” he mumbled, words slurring. “Did Adrius get too sunburnt again?”

Indeed, Adrius was about as red as a steamed lobster at this point, but Finley shook her head and jostled him slightly, exposing the still leaking wound in his leg for Ali to see.

“Nah, he ran into a cactus trying to get away from some guttin’ lizard.”

“OwowowowOW! It was - _GAH!_ \- it was one of those giant lizards, you know? Big, scaley, fangs dripping with rank saliva-”

“Ye can stop with that keech, Adrius,” Finley interrupted. “The bleedin’ thing was barely two feet long.”

Adrius whimpered again as Ali leaned in to take a closer look at his wound.

“Well, it’s good you brought him to me when you did. _Cylindropuntia uncinatus_ spines are-” he paused to make a sound that seemed halfway between a cough and a burp- “absolutely infernal to remove, especially once they’ve released their poison-”

“Poison?”

_“POISON?!?”_

Ali stared at the pair, brow furrowing.

“That’s what I said. Now stop-” he wobbled a bit- “interrupting me. Get ‘Sir Astacus’ into the operating room and I’ll see what I can do.”

Finley stood still, glancing from Ali to Adrius, not entirely sure what to do.

“Or,” Ali sighed, running a hand across his forehead. “You can let him die and we’ll have skewered crayfish for supper tonight.”

“The fuck ye yammerin’ about, ye great blootered dafty?!?” she blurted, nearly dropping Adrius in the process.

She could’ve sworn she saw Ali’s optic nerve from just how hard he rolled his eyes in that instant.

“I am not bloated. I only had half a fifth of whiskey-”

“That’s not what I said-”

“I know, I know. Just-” he burp-coughed again- “get Adrius inside and put him on the table.”

“Ah…aye. Right.” She edged through the doorway, careful not to whack Adrius into anything, and sat him down on Ali’s desk table, prompting him to lie back once she had cleared the papers, books, and empty teacups from its surface. Ali, meanwhile, retrieved a sizeable box, thunking it on a chair and lifting the lid to reveal a mess of vials, tubs, tools, and bandages. “Ye sure yer alright to do this sort of thing, Ali? Ye sound and smell as pissed as a longhall full of revellers right now-”

“I’m fine.”

“Aye, right…”

_“‘Aye right,’”_ Ali mocked, his faked Fremennik accent surprisingly accurate. “I’ve done this several times before, you know.” He selected a tool - something that, to Finley, looked like a filleting knife the fishermen in Rellekka would use - and held it up to the lamp light.

Adrius blanched, lobster-colored cheeks fading to pink at the sight, and Finley placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“Really?” she asked, trying to sound as relaxed as possible and hoping that would rub off him. “Well, that’s good!”

Ali nodded, wiping the blade clean with an alcohol-dampened cloth.

“Of course. I am the most experienced surgeon in Nardah.” He paused his knife-cleaning to shrug his shoulders, chuckling dryly. “Well, on goats, at least.”

“GOATS?!?” Adrius swiped Finley’s hand from his shoulder and made a shaky attempt to stand, face now back to being beet-red as he bellowed out his complaints. “GOATS, ALI?!?! HOW ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO FIX MY LEG WHEN ALL YOU KNOW HOW TO OPERATE ON ARE _GOATMMMMPH-!”_

His outburst was brutally muffled by another damp cloth shoved against his nose and mouth, and, after a moment of struggling, he slumped back down onto the table, out cold.

Finley jumped back, sputtering.

_“WHAT IN THE BLOODY-”_

“That’s better,” Ali sighed, tossing the spent rag over his shoulder and returning a small bottle labeled ‘chloroform’ to the medicine box.

“ALI! YE,” she began, gesturing wildly between Adrius and the discarded rag. “WHAT DID YE-”

“Do I have to put you to sleep as well?” Ali asked, setting out several more metal tools.

“WHA?!? Ah, no…”

“Then, for the love of Elidnis, shut up. I need to concentrate.”

Despite Ali’s warning, Finley continued, snagging Ali’s sleeve and forcing him to face her.

“What did ye do to him?” she growled, her hold tight despite Ali’s attempts to pry her hand away. “Tell me!”

“I work best when my patients are asleep!” he growled likewise, finally twisting her wrist hard enough for her to loosen her grip. “Besides, this is going to hurt, and I’d rather not have this lobster of a man here-” he prodded Adrius’ chest with a finger- “screaming in my face while I’m trying to save his life.”

“His _life?!?”_ Finley squeaked, hands now tangled in her braids. “Is…is he going to die, Ali?”

“Not necessarily.” Ali cut Adrius’ trouser leg off and began swabbing around his wound with some strong-smelling yellow liquid as he continued. “If you just stay quiet and let me work, he will be fine. If you keep running your mouth and distracting me, my hand might slip, and I might sever his femoral artery or otherwise butcher him, which would make my half-brother oh so proud and cause Adrius to bleed out all over the floor that I spent all of yesterday morning sweeping. Also, if I do nothing on account of your interruptions, he will certainly suffer blood poisoning from those cactus spines and, at best, will never walk again, and, at worst, will never breathe again. So, what will it be?”

Finley wasted no time in taking two steps back from the improvised operating table, mouth knit tightly shut.

“Good answer,” Ali said, leveling the blade in her direction for a moment before turning his attention to Adrius.

However just before making the first incision, he hesitated, glancing back in Finley’s direction.

“On second thought, you can help. Get over here, hand me whatever tool I ask for, and make sure Adrius doesn’t choke on his own vomit.”

“Aye.” She did so, holding Adrius’ head to the side with one hand and keeping her other free to dip into the medicine box when needed. “Good luck.”

“I don’t need luck,” Ali replied, flourishing the knife before making a careful first incision. “I just need a steady hand and a steady mind.”

“I know. But ye have neither of those right now.”

“Fair point.” He stumble-burp-coughed again. “Luck it is, then.”

The incisions were small and precise, the blood skillfully swabbed away every few seconds. Finley was surprised - _impressed_ \- at how swiftly he worked, especially in his current state.

“Aye, ye do look like ye know what yer doing…”

_“Shush._ Foreceps.”

She picked up the first pair she found and passed it to Ali, peering down at the surgery site - the spines were now clearly visible in Adrius’ thigh muscles, barbed and leaking a thick, milky green substance.

“Is that the poison?”

_“SHUSH._ No, not those forceps. I need the toothed ones.” She found the correct forceps, fumbling slightly, and handed them over. “And no, that is not the poison. It’s an enzymatic substance that breaks down-” another burp, muffled by a sleeve- “breaks down cellulose, released by contact between the carapace of the spines with haemoglobin-”

“The _fuck?”_

“Finley?”

“Aye?”

_“Shut. Up._ I don’t have much time left before these spines dissolve and release their actual poison.”

“Right.” She bit her tongue, worriedly combing her hand through Adrius’ hair as Ali continued.

One spine extracted, threaded through the muscle like a needle and dropped onto a fresh cloth.

A second, then a third.

A fourth.

A fifth-

_“MERDA!”_

Finley jumped at the sudden outburst - Ali’s voice had never risen to _that_ volume before, and the sound struck her core awfully.

_Something was wrong._

_Very wrong._

“Ali?!?”

There was a pause. Ali turned, expression ironed flat, blood flecking the front of his undershirt.

“Hemostat, please,” he said crisply, pointing to a scissor-like implement. Finley seized it, nearly skewering Ali’s hand in the process of passing it to him.

Still holding Adrius’ head steady, she peered over Ali’s shoulder, hissing when she caught a glimpse of what was wrong.

Blood.

Far too much blood.

She watched Ali swap the wound, then clamp the hemostat around something deep within the leaking tissue. Another tool - the metal forceps from before - was held close to the hemostat.

A flicker of some deep, primal power, a verdant spark, and a whiff of burning flesh later, and Ali removed both tools from the wound, swabbing it again.

The bleeding had stopped.

Finley released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and went back to casting her fingers through Adrius’ hair, shaking slightly.

More spines extracted, all of them still leaking that viscous goo.

Tense, silent minutes passed, feeling more like hours.

Finally, Ali spoke again.

“Water runes.”

Finley’s hand dove into the medicine box, closing around a sachet of water runes. She handed them over - Ali liquified a few in the palm of his hand and directed the resulting liquid through the wound, cleaning it out a final time.

“Threader, please. The suture needle should already be attached.”

Indeed it was, a curved, almost wicked-looking needle clamped within the jaws of another scissor-like tool.

It was almost like watching her mother embroider clothing, the way Ali closed up the surgery site. First the muscle layer with a thick, shiny thread, then the outer layer of skin with-

She balked a bit as, instead of sewing up Adrius’ skin, Ali instead asked for another implement he simply called ‘the stapler.’

Yet, she handed it over without complaint and listened to the repeated _ka-chunk_ the device made and the tinkle of metal shards in between.

The site was bandaged with some loose-woven cloth and, finally, Ali straightened, stretched, and sighed.

“Done.”

Finley sighed likewise, wiping her brow.

“And Adrius? He’ll be alright, aye?” she asked, watching Ali clean his hands and tools.

“He’ll be fine,” he answered, stumbling away from the table and snatching up a half-empty bottle of whiskey along the way. Taking a swig, not even bothering to pour a nip, he flopped down into his chair and stared up at the ceiling. “Give him a couple days, and he’ll be walking around by your side once again, getting horrifically sunburnt like always.”

“Right! Aha!” She ruffled the still unconscious Adrius’ hair, placing a peck on his forehead before striding over to Ali and pulling him upright into a tight hug. “Thank ye, Ali! Yer a right life saver, ye are-”

Ali seemed to stiffen in her arms, shaking slightly and hissing through clenched teeth - she drew back, hands going back to her braids.

“Shit, Ali. I didn’t hurt ye did I?”

After a moment, Ali relaxed, sitting back down and taking another hearty swig from the bottle.

“No, no. It’s fine,” he said, far too quickly, waving his hand dismissively. “And, it’s nothing, really. No problem. No fuss. Don’t mention it.”

Finley put her hands on her hips, staring Ali down.

“I mean it. Thank ye. Ye saved Adrius’ life. Cut some bastard spines out his leg even while ye were blootered and baked off yer arse. That counts for something, aye? So, I’m gonna thank ye for it.”

Ali returned her stare, eyes searching, probing. Eventually, he nodded.

“Then, in that case, you’re welcome, Finley. Now get back over there and watch Adrius. He’ll wake up screaming, no doubt, and he shouldn’t be alone when that happens. Also, please refrain from certain _strenuous_ activities until he’s fully healed, alright? I don’t want to have to stitch him up again after you two have hogged my bed, as is your nightly want.”

“Aye… _right.”_

Taking a seat by the improvised operating table, she held Adrius’ hand, entwining their fingers together.

It was another few minutes before the thoughts that crossed her mind formed into a question, and she blurted it out to the room without a second thought.

“Oi, Ali. That bit about ye only having goat surgery experience was a load of keech, wasn’t it? Ye have done that before, on people, haven’t ye? Where’d ye learn that? And what was with that bit of magic ye used to stop the bleeding? Didn’t see ye use any runes for that, and-”

She paused, waiting for an answer, a ‘shush,’ anything.

Silence.

Scooting around and peering across the room, she discovered why.

Ali was asleep, drooling slightly, the now empty bottle of whiskey cradled in his arms like a child.

“Right…I’ll just ask when yer awake, then,” she mumbled, turning back around to watch over Adrius.

***

The ruse worked.

She thinks I’m asleep.

_Good._

I almost gave myself away with my magic, there.

Need to be more careful in the future.

They can’t know.

Not yet.

_Not until…_

Ah, now the whiskey’s working…

Good.

And I won’t have to worry about that cursed sock on my front doorknob for a while.

Very good.

_very…_

 

_vvveeerrryyy…_

 

_goooooood…._

 

_zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz_


End file.
